Otherppl with Brad Listi

Monica McClure is the guest. Her debut poetry collection, Tender Data, is now available from Birds LLC. NPR says "McClure may be the poster-girl for a new generation of poets: irreverent, well-read, sexy, even dirty, snarky, but ultimately fighting an earnest battle against reductiveness and easy answers to the complex problems of the Internet age: 'Every citizen of this world is on trial/ I'm learning to speak legalese/ as I stroll through civil law like/ a gamine through a sample sale.'" Monologue topics: the Michiko Kakutani April Fool's Day episode, mail, listener reactions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michiko Kakutani is the guest. She is the chief book critic for the New York Times and a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. Monologue topics: kicking, worrying, mail, bless you, all businesses are awful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Handler is the guest. His new novel We Are Pirates is now available from Bloomsbury.  Booklist, in a starred review, says "Handler (aka children's author Lemony Snicket) has never been known for writing precisely happy novels, and his latest certainly doesn't deviate. What could easily have been a slightly silly, fantastical romp becomes, instead, in Handler's capable hands, a macabre, darkly human portrayal of family dynamics and growing up in a world running low on adventure . . . peppered with black humor." And Jess Walter says "We Are Pirates will dazzle, disturb, and delight you. It might even do things to you that don't start with the letter D, like remind you what it's like to be young, or convince you that Daniel Handler can do anything." Monologue topics: the dentist, cough, mail, work, fear, money, children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Chancellor is the guest. His debut novel, A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall, is now available from Harper. The Daily Beast says “To compare a debut novel to Infinite Jest is likely either too flippant or too generous, but consider the bona fides...Will Chancellor’s wonderful debut novel...more than merely promising, is one of the best of the year.” And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it “Bracingly rich...the author maintains an almost thrillerlike pace while taking well-aimed shots at academic and art-market fads and helping two lost souls through essential transformations.” Monologue topics: hellishness, annoying/hectic day, ATT customer service, ultrasounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam Robinson is the guest. He is the founding editor of Publishing Genius Press. Monologue topics: LA, yoga, celebrity sneezes, God bless you.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Timothy Willis Sanders is the guest. His debut novel, Matt Meets Vik, is available now from Civil Coping Mechanisms.  Blake Butler says "I have no idea how Timothy Willis Sanders is able to accumulate so many small reflections into such a mesmerizing mass. Matt Meets Vik makes maybe the most stripped-down paragraphs I've ever seen somehow hold a hundred thousand colors, emotions, tones, like if there were a website that made you forget all other websites ever existed, or that you're even still online. Hilarious, moving, insane, real." And Megan Boyle says "As I was reading Matt Meets Vik (and long after I'd finished), I couldn't get the voice of 'Matt' out of my head, like it gave my inner monologue extra-charming-sounding subwoofers. Everything I did felt funnier and more important. There are only a few books that get in my head the way Matt Meets Vik has. This is one of my favorite books. I didn't want it to end. I can see myself reading this many times." Monologue topics: my daughter threw a fit, mail, Neem Karoli Baba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stewart O'Nan is the guest. His new novel, West of Sunset, is available now from Viking. It is the official Februrary pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Maureen Corrigan, writing for The Washington Post, says “[The] grim yet undeniably fascinating last act of Fitzgerald’s life is the subject of Stewart O’Nan’s gorgeous new novel. . .West of Sunset is a pretty fine Hollywood novel, too, but it’s an even finer novel about a great writer’s determination to keep trying to do his best work.” And George Saunders says “O'Nan is an incredibly versatile and charming writer. This novel, which imagines F. Scott Fitzgerald's troubled time in Hollywood (with cameos by Dorothy Parker, Bogie, and Hemingway), takes up (like much of O'Nan's work) that essential conundrum of grace struggling with paucity. One brilliant American writer meditating on another--what's not to love?” Monologue topics: paranoia, pregnancy, fear, hovering, mail.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Halle Butler is the guest. Her debut novel, Jillian, is available now from Curbside Splendor.  Lindsay Hunter says "This book is incredible. The deadpan way it nails what it is to be a human who lies to herself and tells different lies to everyone else makes me want to laugh and scream. It is hilarious and weird, my two favorite qualities in a book." And Kirkus Reviews says "[Jillian] offers up its characters for hatred and ridicule with such energy, obsessive detail and hopelessness that the reader can't help but read on, through exasperating flinches of sympathy and recognition. A novel that reads like rubbernecking or a junk-food binge, compelling a horrified fascination and bleak laughter in the face of outrageously painted everyday sadness." Monologue topics: thanks, worry, sleeplessness, corporate pitchman fantasies, idealism, crazy people, Starbucks, Valentine's Day, my dog, jokes that fail to land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Porochista Khakpour is the guest. Her novel The Last Illusion is now available from Bloomsbury.  Claire Messud says “Utterly original and compelling, Porochista Khakpour's The Last Illusion weaves Iranian myth with very contemporary American neurosis to create a bittersweet poetry all its own. This ambitious, exciting literary adventure is at once grotesque, amusing, deeply sad—and wonderful, too.” And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it "An audaciously ambitious novel that teeters along a tightrope but never falls off." Monologue topics:  big news, superstition, not wanting to be dominated by superstition despite demonstrably being dominated by superstition by knocking wood repeatedly.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kitty is the guest. She is a rapper/musician whose latest EP, Frostbite, is now available. RollingStone says "Love is pain, and nobody understands that quite like this suburban teen-rap every-girl. Pryde went viral with ["Okay Cupid"]...a homemade mumblecore hit, in the voice of a bored kid from Florida. It's full of wit ("It's my party, couldn't cry if I wanted to") and mall-rat ambience, as she waits for her boyfriend's drunk-dials at 3:30 a.m." And The New York Times says "She doesn’t rap because it’s funny or novel, but rather because it’s simply the best and most comfortable tool available to her. The results so far, while almost no one has been watching, have the intimacy and comfort of private recordings. They transfix."   Monologue topics:  privilege, mail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices